Awards and Accolades

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Here is a collection of animal stories by renowned Indian authors. The stories range from funny, witty, amusing to down right hilarious incidents ! Some of the well known authors are Ruskin Bond, Asha Nehemiah, Anushka Ravishankar, Zai whitaker. The stories were very entertaining to my kids when I read it out to them during their bed time sessions!

My eight year old son, loved the story by Ruskin Bond called "Grandpa fights on ostrich", wherein the author talks about his own grandpa's encounter with a wild ostrich in Africa. The story keeps you on your toes and you breathe a sign of relief when the story ends!! So what actually happens when Grandpa meets the wild ostrich? You have to pick the book and read for yourself :-).

He liked the story so much that he wanted to read more of Ruskin Bond (he has not read Ruskin Bond books before this) and we found another interesting book called "The Hidden Pool". This book talks about the interesting adventures of three boys in the hill side and my son thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.

Coming back to this collection of animal stories, I was very impressed with Asha Nehemiah's story involving a talking cat! Two children travelling back to their home after the summer holidays in a train all alone (due to unavoidable reasons), their problems with the ticket collector and the talking cat coming to their rescue, make for a very riveting and witty read. Along with the children you wonder ...a talking cat? It is not a fantasy story, so how do you explain a talking cat? The mystery unravels itself in the end and you can't help admiring the author for an intelligent story like this :-).

14 comments:

Btw check out this book by Nehemiah called 'The Mystery of the Hair Oil Formula'. Bet your 8-yr old will love it. We've also got a couple of CBT books by her - 'The Runaway Wheel', "Granny's Sari', "Wedding Clothes' and 'Mrs Woolly's Funny Sweaters' - I like every one of them, as do the kids.

Ruskind Bond's Children's Omnibus is a much loved book and been gifted around many a time. My fav is The Blue Umbrella :)

Seems just the kind of book I can recommend to my neighbour who has been asking me what her 11yr old son can read, as he finds most books she gets him to be "too girly". Thanks. Will look out for this one.

Chox, yes will check out the book you mentioned. We also have The runaway wheel and wedding clothes and her books are truly enjoyable !! I personally thought that even "Wedding clothes" was a very intelligent story !

I saw the Omnibus this weekend at Crosswords and thought may be will get it a little later for sooraj (based on the reading level). After the set of mails on this, I feel like picking this book for myself !!

Sandhya, yeah you can recommend this book, but I am wondering if a 11 yr old boy might find it a bit kiddish. May be he will enjoy "The Hidden Pool" better. But yes...no harm suggesting books to anyone :-)

Seems like a lovely collection. I have heard so much about Asha Nehemiah, but haven't had a chance to read her books. I definitely have to get this one, and also the ones Chox has mentioned. Thanks for this neat pointer,R!